Derek Jones is the cornerbacks coach and assistant special teams coach at Duke University.

I am Derek Jones, the cornerbacks coach and assistant special teams coach at Duke University under David Cutcliffe. You probably remember both of us from our times at Ole Miss.

On a normal day in Durham, North Carolina, we start off with practice first thing in the morning so our student athletes can be regular students for the rest of the day. This serves a second purpose: What are these guys going to be doing for the rest of their lives? We're preparing them to get up to go to work every day. Of course, that means I have to get up to go to work every day. so I'm up between 5 and 5:30 a.m., depending on which snooze I use.

We have a team meeting at 7:05, but I get there a little early to get on the exercise bike because I see all the other coaches exercising. We do that because It gets your blood flowing, and when you wake those kids up, you have to be energized as their leader, because we're waking these college kids up to sit in the dark first thing in the morning, because we're usually watching films.

At 8:35 a.m., we hit the practice field, and we practice full speed ahead for about two or two and a half hours, then we go straight upstairs and start to watch the film from that practice. With all this technology, aAll the players have iPads and they can get the film from practice, so when they get a chance to watch, they can respond to that by texting or calling and ask about mistakes they've made.

We get a lunch break where you can go work out if you want. That's when we call coaches, because recruiting never stops: in between practices and meetings you've always got to recruit. The kids aren't you're primary responsibility at that point because they're in school, but You call the coaches about the ones you're recruiting or want to recruit. Around 4, we get together and talk about what we saw in practice and during the course of the day.

Every day is structured, because Coach Cutcliffe is big on attention to detail. You know about what time you're going home each day.

People say to me, 'You've got three daughters. Don't you want a son?' I always say I don't need a son, I've got plenty of them. I take pride in coaching college football because you get to watch guys make that transformation from boys to men.

Kids have so much freedom in college, so much leeway to do the things we've all been told not to do. A coach can't be a tyrant and tell guys military-style, 'You can't do this; you can't do that.' I can tell them from experience, from positive and negative things I've done and situations I've been in that are presented to these guys on a daily basis.

As a college coach, you have to take what you do very seriously from a parental standpoint. The unique thing about being a college coach is when you go into the home of a family and you recruit a kid, you make a pledge to that kid's parents that you're going to be a continuation of everything they've taught them. You get him for the next four years, and he's probably never going to return home to live if he's successful.

Because you spend so much time with these guys, it's like leaving your family at home and going to your family at work. Coach Cut has hired a lot of guys who are former players at Duke, and a lot of us coached together at Ole Miss, and that continues the family atmosphere. He's not going to hire anyone that he doesn't know, or that one of us doesn't know and know well. It's a really good working atmosphere.

Every day is different, because you don't go sit at your desk, even when you're watching film or trying to get ready for an opponent, every day brings something different to the table. That makes everything you do fun. You look up and it's 9:30 at night and you got there at 6 a.m. It doesn't really seem like a job.

— As told to The Clarion-Ledger

A native of Woodruff, S.C., Jones lettered four seasons as a cornerback at Ole Miss from 1993-96, and won the Chucky Mullins Courage Award his senior year. He was selected second-team All-SEC twice, captained the Rebels in 1996, and was selected to play in the prestigious Blue-Gray All-Star Classic following his senior campaign. He also earned All-SEC accolades as a sprinter for the Ole Miss Track Team.